


The Great War

by lovethecoat51



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Gen, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-07
Updated: 2015-02-07
Packaged: 2018-03-10 22:44:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3306137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovethecoat51/pseuds/lovethecoat51
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack's time in the First World War</p>
<p>(warning: descriptions of mustard gas poisoning)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Great War

It was never meant to kill. You gotta remember that. Mustard gas wasn’t designed to spread across a battle field, picking off people like the Grim Reaper or something. It was meant to get men off the battlefield and into the field hospital, thin the ranks so badly that the enemy would just surrender because they didn’t have enough cots. 

Things didn’t always go according to plan.

 

_Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,*_

_Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,_

_Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs_

_And towards our distant rest began to trudge._

_Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots_

_But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;_

_Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots_

_Of disappointed shells that dropped behind._

 

We weren’t the biggest force in the grand scheme of things, but we were just as important as anyone else. Burrowed into our trenches just outside of a forest in southern France, there wasn’t much to pass the time.  Most men had at least a beat up deck of cards and that was it. Clean your rifle, pace back and forth, maybe take an extra guard duty if you were  _really_  desperate. Wish we’d had more people get that desperate, come to think of it.

 

_GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,_

_Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;_

_But someone still was yelling out and stumbling_

_And floundering like a man in fire or lime.—_

_Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light_

_As under a green sea, I saw him drowning._

 

Imagine a fog that just hangs on a field, that slowly rolls over everything and settles into any crack or crevice it can find.  Think of what fun a  _trench_  is in foggy weather, not being able to see five feet in front of you, not being able to tell if the person standing next to you is friend or foe until it’s almost too late.

Now imagine that fog makes blisters pop out everywhere, all over you, all inside you. The blisters don’t just stay there, either. Oh, no, they explode and ooze out everywhere, burning as it goes. Your lungs burn every time you try to take a breath, which is pretty hard by itself because everything  _hurts_.  Your eyes ache – if you’re lucky, you can open them.

And if you’re  _really_  lucky, you die before you start tearing at your own flesh.

 

_In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,_

_He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning._

 

That’s the thing about trenches and gas attacks – they were almost made for each other. The gas just hangs there, sometimes for weeks, and you can’t get out of it, not unless you want to climb over the top and risk getting shot to death – which actually isn’t a half bad idea. Certainly less painful, and I say that out of experience.

 

_If in some smothering dreams you too could pace_

_Behind the wagon that we flung him in,_

_And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,_

_His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;_

_If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood_

_Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,_

_Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud_

_Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--_

_My friend, you would not tell with such high zest_

_To children ardent for some desperate glory,_

_The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est_

_Pro patria mori._

 

473 men went into that trench. I was the only one to leave it.

**Author's Note:**

> * - poem text from 'Dulce Et Decorum Est' by Wilfred Owen


End file.
